The Gift of the Magi

This story was originally published on Dec 10, 1905 in The New York Sunday World as "Gifts of the
Magi." It was subsequently published as The Gift of the Magi in O. Henry's 1906 short story collection
The Four Million.

We created The Gift of the Magi Study Guide for this story to benefit teachers and students.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one
and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks
burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della
counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it.
Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles
predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at
the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that
word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.

The foolish donkey

A salt seller used to carry the salt bag on his donkey to the market every day.

On the way they had to cross a stream. One day the donkey suddenly tumbled down the stream and the
salt bag also fell into the water. The salt dissolved in the water and hence the bag became very light to
carry. The donkey was happy.

Then the donkey started to play the same trick every day.
The salt seller came to understand the trick and decided to teach a lesson to it. The next day he loaded a
cotton bag on the donkey.

Again it played the same trick hoping that the cotton bag would be still become lighter.

But the dampened cotton became very heavy to carry and the donkey suffered. It learnt a lesson. It
didn’t play the trick anymore after that day, and the seller was happy.